one day, thirty-two years later...

September 2083 - Adrian Jackson and Aurora Miguel are 51.

One day, Aurora decides to buy a little beachside bungalow on Twikki Island. She and Adrian have finally come to a point in their lives where they have plenty of money to spend on such luxuries, and she could use a little relaxation. She's earned this relaxation. The elections are coming up fast, and this fall, she's running for CFO of the Lake County Treasury. And that's on top of managing her award-winning boutique. On top of teaching business classes at the university. But mostly, that's all on top of the fact that her baby is two-hundred-thousand miles outside the Earth's atmosphere, and training to go to war.

Her head is just about spinning, and she doesn't even know which direction to stop it in.

But Adrian assures her this is nothing a little fresh air, warm sand, and soft foaming waves can't cure...

Or a delicate fresh-cut rose...

Or a juggling competition, in their underwear, that she's winning...

It's no great mystery where her boys got their silliness from. Or their charm. Adrian has always been such a good reminder for her to take life slower sometimes. Without him, she thinks her head would have spun itself well off by now.

So this short off-season vacation is good for her spirits, with nothing else to do but sleep, make love, sleep some more, take long quiet walks around the island, and have long lazy lunches at one hotel cafe or another.

After one of those long lazy lunches, they're walking around the open pavilion and she can't help but look over his shoulder. Through the trees, she can barely make out the vined arch on the beach, the wedding resort, with its decorated patio being prepped for an evening wedding. A silly ritual as far as she's ever been concerned, but it happens every day, two young people committing their lives to each other.

She's barely conscious of the words as they leave her lips. "Do you ever think about it?"

He turns to follow her gaze on the beach behind him. "What, marriage?" He looks at her as if he's never been asked a more foreign question in his life. "Do you?"

"No, not really," she says. Until now, she might add. Until this very moment, she's never doubted their decision even for a second. She doesn't know what this is. "Do you think we should have, for the boys?"

"The boys turned out okay."

"Yeah, they're fine," she says.

It's still on her mind as they step back inside the cafe. She doesn't quite know how to ask this. "Do you still see people?"

His face is blank. It's not something they normally talk about - in fact, they've never discussed it with each other in any great detail. They've never shared notes, or swapped stories. But she can't help herself wondering.

"I mean, it's fine, right? Because that's what we said. But I was just wondering, when was the last time?"

"You really want to know?"

She nods.

"Alana Fortney," he says. "About eight years ago."

"Oh no," she says. "You weren't the reason they...?"

"No," he says. "Everybody had a piece of her."

"Nice," she says. "That's good to hear."

"What about you?"

"Just after the boys were born, maybe," she says. "Abe."

"I hated that guy," he says.

She laughs, secretly loving the way her ex-lover's name makes his forehead scowl. He only ever had flings of his own, that much she is certain of, while she was able to keep long-running affairs. At least in the beginning, before the boys, before her life became so rich and full that she didn't have the energy to spend keeping boyfriends apart.

"You don't get to hate any of them," she says.

"But wow, Abe? That must have been almost twenty years ago."

"Yeah," she says. "Well you know. I've been busy."

And then she finds herself blushing, as if they were sharing their very first intimacies all over again, learning deeply new things about each other. Her secret comes out into the open - at least on her part, this no longer seems to be an open arrangement.

He only holds her hands and smiles. She can't ask him to commit to any more than that. Not unless he wants to.

They stay there at that hotel, wandering from the beach to the bar to the pavilion, long into the twilight hours, dancing under the last glowing traces of daylight. As they whisper to each other, as they share their familiar touches, somewhere behind them there is a young couple committing their lives to each other.

And this one day, thirty-two years later, she looks up at him and she can't remember why all those years ago she was so stubborn, so sure she never wanted to join herself to just one man. In the end, it's exactly what she's done. In the end, she didn't need to sacrifice her autonomy to be a partner and a piece of this family. And when nothing else in her life is certain, it gives her this moment of reflection: did they do it right?

She asks him, "Are we okay?"

"Better," he says. "We're great."

*******

(footnotes: Jolie, Jolie and teaching at LCU // Tyler called up to war // Alana Fortney, whom everyone had a piece of...)

notes: sorry if this one, and the next probably, are kind of light reading. I'm moving this week... again... and on top of that, I feel kind of tired-coldy-sneezy. My real writing has been totally washed out lately too. But if all goes according to our careful plans, we should only have a day or two of internet downtime, and I fully expect to get my brain back after this move is done.

Grrr, hate moving!

Anyway, let's consider this a sort of prelude to the Jackson family update. It was meant to just be off-camera stuff for the background of their family update, but I started working on it, and then all this came out of it. Funny how that happens, buy a beach house, get a mini-update, lol!

But it's okay, since I hadn't even realized it until I did the math, but they've been together a freaking long time! Thirty-two years is quite an achievement even up against the most solid of marriages. So I thought they deserved to celebrate that a little, in their own way.

That, and Beau completely took over their whole upcoming family update ;)

But anyway, back to the point, these two never, EVER roll the multiple partners wants anymore, and I can't even remember the last time they did (which is odd, for romance primaries). Yet for all their very obvious monogamy, they still fear the hell out of getting married to each other, lol!

But this? Thirty-two years later, and now she's having second thoughts? Does she mean it? Is it a mid-life crisis? Maybe in the midst of all this going on, she's just taking a moment of personal reflection, and recognizing the commitment?

Let's have her sit on that thought for a little while ;)